Pathfinder Society Scenario #2: The Hydra's Fang Incident (OGL) PDF

After an Andoren village is razed by the Hydra's Fang, a renegade Chelish slaver-ship, outrage threatens the stability of both nations. You and your fellow Pathfinders are sent to capture the Fang before the Inner Sea is pitched into political frenzy.

Written by Tim Hitchcock

This scenario is designed for play in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, but can easily be adapted for use with any world. This scenario is compliant with the Open Game License (OGL) and is suitable for use with the 3.5 edition of the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game.

Interesting, but also a bit on the easy side, even for a Season 0. I like that it tended to have some uncommon encounters and a decent amount of not RP, but potential non-combat encounters if the players chose that route.

Most of the combat encounters where a bit of a breeze, honestly, leaving me really wishing I could throw in some non-PFS random encounters, but still fun.

Two big issues I encountered running it are (and again, Season 0. . .), a lack of a map or two for listed encounters and some of the writing is much more on the confusing side than not.

The largest player complaint I heard was that there where a lot of times that they didn't really get why they where doing things, (flimsy story motivation), but still enjoyed it and (as a PbP) ran fairly quickly.

It also seems that just about everything after rushing to the Underdocks to the final assault can be completely bypassed if one of the Characters has purchased their own ship. Especially as it would stand to reason that said character would have both known about and reasonably purchased a valid "pass". Didn't really care for that aspect either, as it seems written exclusively to be a sort of "gotcha" against the players. This should have been mentioned in the mission briefing and been an option right up front for characters to know about and purchase. Not a huge deal, I just have a pet peeve against this sort of DMing.

Fun but ultimately generic

The Hydra's Fang Incident tasks players with tracking down a contact on board a renegade Chelish boat that is causing quite a bit of destruction.

+ Pirate and water-themed adventures are always fun and provide a change of scenery from the usual dungeons or wilderness.

+ A few encounters can be quite challenging, requiring players to plan and use smart tactics to prevail.

+ One of the encounters involving boats and water-based combat is very exciting and memorable.

- The overall plot is a little messy for players to follow. It's easy to forget what the party's motivations are for going on this quest. The faction missions also muddy up the waters in terms of objective.

- The final encounter felt very random and out of place compared to the rest of the scenario. It's also incredibly dangerous for low-level parties.

The Hydra's Fang Incident is a fun low-level PFS scenario, but ultimately fails to overcome its rather sloppy story and off-putting final encounter and become a really great adventure. Still, it's decent enough and worth playing or running once.

Good adventure but nothing special

This was a descent adventure and I liked the dockside environment. Combats were varied and interesting but a few of them can be very swingy depending on how both the GM and players handle them. The story was okay but there are some holes that the GM has to fill in. Some of the faction missions were questionable.

This was a fairly well constructed adventure, a bit confusing at first. Why is our contact dead, why are we fighting again. Why do we always discover the recently slain body of our contact? Buy a Touch of the Sea Potion, 50gp. I will not spoil the whole scenario but stealth should not be over-rated here.